


pieces and parts

by stylusmaleficarum (cygnes)



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: Consent Issues, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 02:09:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15233064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cygnes/pseuds/stylusmaleficarum
Summary: Generally speaking, people are not interested in Jared as a whole person. They only want the parts of him that they find most useful.





	pieces and parts

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](https://stylusmaleficarum.tumblr.com/post/174517957337/fic-pieces-and-parts) on tumblr.
> 
> Content warnings in endnote.

“You have lovely hands,” the man across the counter said. Donald had the sudden urge to hide them away, behind his back or behind the cash register or under the countertop where they kept packing supplies.

“Thank you,” he said, and left his hands where they were.

“You play piano?” the man said, and smiled. Not an unkind smile or a lascivious one, but an interested one, definitely.

“Not well,” Donald said. He still didn’t give in to the urge to hide his hands. He did, however, clasp them together. A new nervous habit to replace all the others he had to train himself out of. “I learned a little when I was younger, but I haven’t kept up with it.”

“There’s always time,” the man said.

“You _bothering_ this nice boy, Monty?” Antje drawled from behind Donald. She was good at accents. She could sound like she was from New Orleans when she wanted to, though usually she didn’t bother.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, ma’am,” Monty said. He was tall — about as tall as Donald. Broad, though; strong. At least a decade older. A number of factors that made Donald nervous, though none of them were Monty’s fault. “Just trying to drum up business, you know.” He smiled at Antje, too, before looking at Donald again. “I own a music store. Sheet music, records. Thought I’d spotted an easy mark.”

“You’ve got two months to work on him before he goes back up north,” Antje said. “Donnie’s a college boy.” She put a hand on his shoulder. Donald wished she hadn’t said his name, not even a shortened version. Because now Monty knew his face, his name, where he could be found. “You gonna buy something, huh, or do I have to get Sabine to kick you out?” Sabine was the shop’s other owner, another Berlin transplant who grew up when there had still been a wall up. She was half a foot shorter than Antje and a full foot shorter than Donald. Small, soft-spoken, and not one to suffer fools.

“I came in for candles,” Monty said. “My usual.” He smiled at Donald again. It was subdued this time. Maybe even a little bashful. “Ambiance, you know?”

“What kind?” Donald said. “We have, well. We have scented, unscented, different colors for different purposes…”

“No, his are in the back,” Antje said. “I’ll get them. And no funny business, eh?”

“Swear on my life,” Monty said as she waved him off, ducking behind a curtain. “I didn’t mean to spook you,” he said softly to Donald. “I get forward sometimes, not to everyone’s tastes. No harm meant.”

The candles Antje brought out were a gradient, from black by the wick to white at the base. Donald hadn’t seen any like them yet.

“No charge for these, you know that,” Antje said when Monty took out his wallet. “Be well, and don’t you bother my employees.”

“For your trouble,” he said, sliding a twenty across the counter at Donald.

“Oh, no, please, it’s…” His throat started to close up. Money meant a debt — a debt to a man who liked his hands.

“It’s alright,” Antje said. She misunderstood the source of his hesitation, slid the money the rest of the way over, next to the register. Monty took the candles and left. Donald still didn’t touch the bill. “He thinks he’s cursed. Maybe he’s right. He’s had two people he loved die on him suddenly. Can’t charge a man for trying to lift that off himself, can we?” She nudged him with her elbow. “He’s alright, really. But I’ll deal with him if you don’t want to. Okay?”

Donald nodded. Wondered if Antje would let him have one of those candles. But if he asked, he’d have to explain. There were too many threads all tangled together and it would sound more like a tale of woe than a chain of events connected back to the same unknown source. But there was one, he thought: there had to be.

—

Jared is used to feeling less like a person and more like a collection of parts. His hands, sometimes. Often. People like those, and his wrists, which seems to naturally follow. Once, it was all the way up to the tender crook of his arm, where he still has a pattern of cigarette burns too regularly-spaced to be mistaken for an accident. Other times, more than once, the focus has been on his neck

(a hand against his throat to make him fight for breath, a hand on the back of his neck to hold him in place)

perhaps because it is both vulnerable and difficult to hide away.

It’s not always with an intent to hurt or control. His friends on the rowing team had wondered at his ribs, the ridge of his spine, and made up their minds to help. A hand against his back was both a physical comfort and an assurance that someone would notice if things changed for the worse. For a while, anyway.

And then, of course, there were the more intimate objects of obsession. His mouth, ordinary in appearance but talented when bent to certain tasks. His knees, his thighs, valuable less for their function in keeping him upright and mobile and more for the fact that they could be induced to part by flattery or by force. What was between them — more tools to be turned to whatever use someone else saw fit.

—

Gavin called it his _hole_ , insistently and nastily, probably because Jared had initially flinched or looked appalled. Maybe because Gavin was determined to remind Jared who was in charge by specifically making him uncomfortable, implicitly daring him to protest or resist. He rarely took the bait.

When he was unceremoniously crammed into the wardrobe of a hotel room because Gavin had an unexpected guest, he played a game from childhood. The game was this: count to a hundred and stay very quiet. Then go back to the beginning and count to two hundred. And so on and so forth. You won the game if you were let out before you reached a thousand. Sometimes the best way to do this was to count very slowly.

(Really, you won or lost the game depending on what happened afterward.)

When Gavin tied him up, he thought to himself, _this is nothing compared to those stress positions; why, this is almost perfectly comfortable._ And Gavin’s meanness was moment-to-moment. It was all-consuming when it showed itself, but it was inconstant.

“Your greedy little hole,” Gavin said, pushing in too fast with two fingers and a lot of lubrication. “You’ve needed this, haven’t you?” He drew his fingers back out with excruciating slowness. Twisting, stroking. He didn’t expect a verbal answer. What he wanted was the little involuntary sounds Jared made when he was trying not to. “Maybe I should give you something to tide you over. Would you like that?”

Another question not requiring a response. Jared nodded anyway, cheek against the sheets. Here, in one of the guest rooms, the sheets were modal and bamboo. Renewable fibers. Soft but slightly strange. In the master suite, it was high-count cotton. Nights they were in Gavin’s room meant something special or especially difficult in store. The soft-strange guest room sheets had therefore begun to have a calming effect on Jared. He flinched a little when he felt something smooth and unfamiliar pressing against him. _It will be easier if you relax_ , he reminded himself.

“I want you to wear this tomorrow,” Gavin said. Jared nodded again, trusting that Gavin would see. Trusting that he had the full focus of Gavin’s attention. Though ‘wear’ didn’t seem like the right word, Jared thought, as Gavin pushed it all the way in. Things are _worn_ on the outside of the body. “To work. You’ll be leaving with me in the evening.” Gavin tapped the base of the plug lightly and Jared felt himself shudder.

There were not rules, exactly, to what they did. They never put limits into words. But certain things were understood between them. Work, for instance, was not where they had sexual liaisons. On the Hooli campus, certainly, before or after standard work hours. But not during the workday. Even so: Jared did not protest. He did not resist. This request was simple enough, small enough.

The next day passed. It passed as though nothing were different. Gavin snapped at him and ignored him by turns. Jared carried out his duties with his usual aplomb and usual lack of a lunch break. He sat a little gingerly, but otherwise… he mostly waited. Something was coming for him. He just wasn’t sure what or when.

 _When_ proved to be 6 p.m. _What_ was the usual summons to Gavin’s office that preceded their evenings together. It was easy, out of habit, to let Gavin bend him over the desk and push his trousers and underwear down around his thighs. ( _Easy_ , like _hole_ , was a word Gavin sometimes used against him. With greater effect, even, because hearing it did not scandalize him so much as it frightened him in certain contexts. He doubted Gavin noticed a difference.)

“I’ve been looking forward to this,” Gavin said. Cool, almost conversational. He tugged at the base of the plug, pulled it halfway out before pushing it back in. “I’ve been thinking about it all day.” He made a little sound in the back of his throat. It was almost a chuckle. “Well, not _all_ day. A few of my meetings did merit real attention.” He pulled the plug all the way out and Jared winced. It didn’t hurt. Not exactly. But he felt too tender, on the edge of raw. He’d always been sensitive.

He was sure it would be over soon. Gavin would penetrate him with his fingers, with his penis, and the evening would enter a lull until at least after dinner. Instead: the shock of something harder, colder. Jared clamped a hand over his mouth to keep an embarrassing sound from slipping out. It was another plug — not much larger, but metal instead of silicone. Unyielding.

“I’m going out to dinner,” Gavin said, “and you’re going to wait for me.”

Jared was sure that night would end in Gavin’s bedroom. That he’d be on cotton sheets, if he was allowed on the bed at all.

—

Richard pulls Jared into his orbit as inexorably as a gravitational metaphor would suggest. Jared isn’t naïve enough to imagine that true love will break his curse. (It’s not true love, after all, if it isn’t returned.) But whether Richard notices or not, some part of Jared will come to belong to him. The hands are an obvious choice: a perennial favorite. The hands that do the work Richard needs them to. But there’s a place behind his eyes that aches when he goes without sleep, too, and something in his gut that twists to see Richard in distress.

Jared wonders which part will be needed or wanted so much that it defines him to Richard. It’s never all of him.

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for the usual unfortunate implications about Jared's past (including physical abuse and sexual abuse) and _extremely_ dubious consent in the Gavin/Jared sexual content.


End file.
